1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method for assigning security levels to a shared component. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for using completed workflow step security levels in order to determine a shared component's security level.
2. Description of the Related Art
Large computer systems typically support multiple applications. These applications invoke “workflows” whereby a workflow is a series of process steps. For example, a computer system may support an employee directory application, and one of the application's workflows is to retrieve contact information from an employee database. Each process step uses a “component” during its execution. Using the example described above, the employee directory application may use a “database access” component during its contact information retrieval workflow.
A challenge found is when more than one application accesses a particular component. Expanding on the example described above, another one of the computer system's applications may be an employee data update application, whereby the application accesses the same employee database as the employee directory application in order to update contact information. In this example, both the employee directory application and the employee data update application share the “database access” component. The challenge found when applications share components is assigning a security level to the component. In the example described above, retrieving contact information is at a lower security level than updating contact information. However, existing art assigns the same security level to both process steps when the shared component is used, regardless of which application is invoking the shared component.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method to allow shared components to operate at different security levels based upon a corresponding process step.